NovaThor: Is it a Worthy Competitor to Tegra, Exynos and Snapdragon?

So another SoC (System on Chip) is slowly but surely making its way into the market and is aiming to become the top dog that mobile manufacturers would turn to. It is none other than the ‘NovaThor’ SoC. So, is it a force that established SoCs like ‘Tegra’, ‘Exynos’ and ‘Snapdragon’ have to reckon with? Let’s find out!

Introduction

‘NovaThor’ is a product of ‘ST-Ericsson’, a joint venture of ‘ST Microelectronics’ and ‘Ericsson’. The joint venture company has lined up many variants out of which 4 have come into focus. They are ‘U8500’, ‘U9500’, ‘L8540’ and ‘L9540’.

The Insides: CPU and GPU

There is a reason why the ‘NovaThor’ SoC has got such popularity and it has partially got to do with the components of the SoC: the CPU and the GPU. All the 4 ‘NovaThor’ SoCs outlined above have CPUs manufactured on the basis of the designs licensed from ARM. These are dual-core cortex A9 microprocessors that have gained popularity over the past year and have now become the standard in most of the high end mobiles that are being manufactured by companies such as ‘Samsung’. Now here ends the commonality among the 4 variants. The differences are what make each of them unique:

• While the ‘U8500’ and the ‘U9500’ have the A9s clocked at a frequency of around 1 Ghz, the ‘L8540’ and the ‘L9540’ will have the A9s clocked at a frequency of around 1.85 Ghz. This implies that the 'L Series' SoCs will be more powerful
• While the ‘U8500’ and the ‘U9500’ have GPUs from ‘ARM’ (‘ARM Mali 400’), the ‘L8540’ and the ‘L9540’ have GPUs from ‘Imagination Technologies’ (‘Power VR SGX 544’). This implies that the 'L Series' SoCs will perform much better as far as graphics are concerned as we have already seen from the innumerous fights between the above mentioned GPUs where 'Power VR SGX 544' comfortably trumped 'Mali 400' in this department
• While the ‘L9540’ and ‘L8540’ provide 4G capabilities (LTE), the ‘U9500’ and ‘U8500’ will work to provide 3G capabilities. This implies that the 'L Series' SoCs will provide better download and upload speeds
• While the ‘U9500’ and ‘U8500’ are manufactured using 45 nm semiconductor technology, the ‘L9540’ and ‘L8540’ are manufactured using 28 nm semiconductor technology. This implies that the 'L Series' SoCs will be power efficient as compared to the 'U Series' SoCs
• The ‘U9500’ will have an edge over ‘U8500’ as far as download and upload speeds are concerned
• Similarly, the ‘L9540’ will have an edge over ‘L8540’

Mobile Manufacturers: What do they think?

While the ‘NovaThor U8500’ has already found its way into mobiles being manufactured by companies like ‘HTC’ (‘Sensation’) , ‘Samsung’ (‘Galaxy S Advance’, ‘Galaxy Ace 2’, ‘Galaxy Beam’) and ‘Sony’ (‘Xperia U’ and ‘Xperia P’), the rest of the three (‘U9500’, ‘L8540’, ‘L9540’) are not far behind. Another major player like ‘Nokia’ is also looking at integrating this SoC into its models. This will be the first time that ‘Nokia’ is looking at partnering with another chip manufacturer since all of its ‘Windows Phones’ released until now are based on ‘Qualcomm’s’ SoC (‘Snapdragon’).

The Competition: ‘Tegra’, ‘Exynos’ and ‘Snapdragon’

If you are an avid reader and follower of tech news, you would probably have noticed that some of the specifications of the ‘NovaThor’ SoC match another SoC very closely. Yes, as you would have probably guessed by now, it is the ‘Exynos’. The ‘Exynos’ SoC, used in ‘Samsung Galaxy SII’ and ‘Samsung Galaxy Note’, contains exactly the same components that the ‘NovaThor U8500’ SoC does: a ‘Dual-Core Cortex A9’ CPU and ‘Mali 400’ GPU. The only difference is that while the ‘Dual Cortex A9s’ in ‘Samsung Galaxy SII’ ‘Exynos’ SoC are clocked at 1.2 Ghz, they are clocked at 1.4 Ghz in ‘Samsung Galaxy Note’ ‘Exynos’ SoC and at around 1 Ghz in ‘NovaThor U8500’ SoC. Though the ‘U8500’ appears to have a disadvantage here, the rest of the capabilities like 1080p HD Video recording, HSPA capabilities, Extensive video format support are what put it in competition. In fact, the LTE equipped ‘NovaThor L9540’ and ‘NovaThor L8540’ are definitely going to be stars in their own rights and will guaranteed, match what other SoCs like ‘Tegra’ and ‘Snapdragon’ are offering.

Something is amiss….??: Yes, Quad-Core!!

Yes, ‘ST-Ericsson’ hasn’t outlined the Quad-Core roadmap for its ‘NovaThor’ SoC. The scene in the market is rapidly changing and the roadmap gains all the more significance as ‘Nvidia’ and ‘Samsung’ are already out with their Quad-Core offerings in the form of ‘Tegra 3’ and ‘Exynos 4 Quad’ respectively. ‘Qualcomm’ is also going to be out with its Quad-Core ‘Snapdragon’ offering very soon. So, ‘ST-Ericsson’ has a lot of work to do. It has to first impress the customers with the first 4 variants and then it has to manufacture and market its Quad-Core offering very rapidly to take advantage of the growing smartphone and tablet market.

The Bottom Line: Yes, ‘This means War’!!

The mobiles in which the ‘NovaThor U8500’ is fitted have already gained attention in the market. While the ‘Galaxy Beam’ is Samsung’s first offering which is coming out with an integrated projector inside it, ‘Sony’ is hoping to return to profitability with offerings such as ‘Xperia P’ and the ‘Xperia U’ and hence it is investing heavily on marketing the ‘Xperia’ models. If people accept the above phones, then ST-Ericsson can challenge market leaders like 'Nvidia', 'Samsung' and 'Qualcomm'.

Stay Tuned..!!

Intel Medfield: The new CHIP on the block

Nowadays, you guys must be hearing the term 'Medfield' a lot. So, what is Medfield?

If you even have a vague idea of the 'Chips' and 'Microprocessors' market, you would know that Intel is one of the principal market leaders. Laptops and PCs from leading manufacturers like Toshiba, Dell, Lenovo etc. use Intel's chips to power their bodies which has made Intel one of the undisputed leaders in this segment. So, what about the smartphone market then?

Intel, for some reason, hasn't really focused on the smartphone market, which had thrown up a huge opportunity for companies like ARM and Qualcomm to make their mark in this segment. Today, they are one of the undisputed leaders in this market and have even for the last quarter earned huge revenues and also made huge profits by selling smartphone chips. The reason obviously is people's increasing preference towards buying smartphones. ARM and Qualcomm had probably forecasted this then and now are reaping  its rewards.  So, what about Intel?

It seems that Intel have finally realized their mistake and are now focused on gaining a slice of the 'Smartphone Chip' market pie. They are going to be out with their first SoC (System-on-Chip) in this year. The platform for this SoC is named 'Medfield' and the SoC itself has been named 'Penwell'. So, is the 'Penwell SoC' ready to take on established players like Exynos and Tegra? Let's find out.

Intel has demonstrated the power of their new SoC by pitting it against devices like Samsung Galaxy Nexus and have won the appreciation of everybody. The SoC seems to have a 1.6 Ghz single-core Atom Z2460 processor (CPU) and a 400 Mhz Power VR SGX 540 (GPU). In benchmark tests like 'Sunspider Javascript' and 'Browsermark', Intel's SoC has defeated the current leader (TI OMAP 4460 in Galaxy Nexus) by quite a good margin. While the 'Galaxy Nexus' scored 97381 on 'Browsermark', Intel's Penwell SoC scored a better 116425. As you already know, the CPU is entirely responsible for the remarkable performance on these tests and by the demonstration of such performance, it seems that Intel's single-core 1.6 Ghz Atom processor (also called 'Saltwell') is better than TI OMAP's dual-core 1.2 Ghz processor. Guess that the old man did have some wise tricks up his sleeve!!!!

Anyways, what feels like a kind of blip in this amazing SoC is the choice of GPU that Intel has made, a Power VR SGX 540. It's actually surprising why manufacturers like Samsung and Intel are opting to go for this GPU from 'Imagination Technologies' as it has almost been 2 years since it initially debuted in the market. But what actually makes the Power VR SGX 540 in Intel's SoC better than the other Power VR SGX 540s is that the GPU here is clocked at a higher frequency: 400 Mhz. Hopefully, this should make it perform better in Intel's SoC.

So it is pretty clear that if Intel had debuted with this offering for the smartphone market a year ago, it would definitely had a huge advantage and would probably have been rubbing shoulders with the current leaders like ARM and Qualcomm as far as 'Smartphone Chip' market is concerned. Anyways, as the saying goes, 'Better Late than Never'. Initial reviews suggest that Intel's first offering is most definitely not bad and it will only get better when the company comes out with their dual-core offerings. That might actually be the beginning of a new era as far as Intel is concerned.

Stay Tuned..!!

Milking the Galaxy: Journey from Galaxy S to Galaxy S II

I bet that reading the title would have made your mind wander off to the ‘Milky Way’ galaxy in which our planet Earth is a teeny-tiny part. Well, let me bring you back to it. I am talking about the ‘Galaxy’ range of smartphones and how Samsung’s marketing and operation teams worked together in a cohesive fashion to generate mind boggling revenues for the company.

It all started when Samsung announced the ‘Galaxy S II’ smartphone at ‘Mobile World Congress’ at Barcelona in February 2011. Samsung declared that the smartphone would be released in the world markets starting from its homeland in April and yes, true to its word, the ‘Galaxy S II’ has been released in almost every major world market till date and it has been a resounding success everywhere.

Almost all of you know that the smartphone has redoubtable specifications and has gained the approval and praise of almost every tech enthusiast in the world. But, if you view the whole ‘Galaxy S II’ exercise from the business point of view, you will get to know the real thing.

Understand that there are two technologies that are most prevalent in the market today: GSM and CDMA. While the GSM versions of the phones work on different carriers by just changing the SIM card, the CDMA versions are locked down to a specific carrier. Samsung originally released the ‘Galaxy S II’ bearing the model number GT-I9100 with the ‘Android’ operating system, a GSM version. On May 9, 2011 they announced that they had received 3 million pre-orders for the smartphone.

Samsung was very quick to foresee that it wouldn’t be able to meet the huge cumulative demand from all the markets. There is a very good reason for it. As you would have already got from my previous posts, The ‘Galaxy S II’ uses two important components manufactured by Samsung itself. The display ‘Super AMOLED plus’ is manufactured by Samsung and the SoC (System on Chip) i.e. Exynos 4210 is also manufactured by Samsung. So, Samsung had taken the help of Nvidia. It launched a Tegra-2 powered version (GT-I9103) of the ‘Galaxy S II’ and named it ‘Galaxy R’ also called the ‘Galaxy Z’ in Sweden. This European version of the ‘Galaxy S II’ didn’t get a ‘Super AMOLED plus’ screen and instead settled for an ‘SC-LCD’ display and a reduced 5 megapixel camera instead of the 8 megapixel camera that the original came with. But it was also priced lower as compared to the ‘Galaxy S II’ GT-I9100 version.

In order to compete well in the relatively lesser priced smartphone section, Samsung released another version called ‘Samsung Galaxy W’. This doesn’t have a dual-core processor but instead settles for a single core 1.4 GHz Qualcomm processor with an ‘SC-LCD’ screen and a 5 megapixel camera. It was also priced lower as compared to the original ‘Galaxy S II’ version in order to compete well.

In many of the world markets, 4G technologies had already been in place and Samsung also saw an opportunity there. The originally released ‘Galaxy S II’ did not have LTE (Long Term Evolution – A 4G Technology) baked into it. So Samsung released a variant of the ‘Galaxy S II’ called ‘Galaxy S II LTE’ and ‘Galaxy S II HD LTE’ on August 28, 2011. While the ‘Galaxy S II LTE’ has a 4.5 inch Super AMOLED display, the ‘Galaxy S II HD LTE’ sported a 4.65 inch SuperAMOLED 720p display.

Samsung saved the Canadian and the American markets for the last. In America, Carriers (Service Providers) tie up with mobile companies and sell CDMA versions at subsidized rates. Normally the contracts have duration of 2 years after which, the user gains ownership of the phone. Samsung tied up with ‘Sprint’, ‘T-Mobile’ and ‘AT&T’ carriers and offered ‘SPH D710’, ‘SGH T989’ and ‘SGH I777’ respectively. All of these are variants of the ‘Galaxy S II’ smartphone. The ‘T-Mobile’ version was released with a 1.5 GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor instead of the Exynos CPU as the Exynos CPU wasn’t compatible with T-Mobile’s network. There are other differences between the models but they are minor. Samsung was able to bring the entire ‘United States of America’ under its purview with this release strategy. Currently, Samsung is also selling the ‘Galaxy S II Skyrocket’ for ‘AT&T’ (SGH-I727) which is an improvement over the original version that the carrier originally got. Similar to the strategy followed in the US, Samsung also hooked up with carriers like ‘Rogers’, ‘Bell’ and ‘Telus’ to cover the Canadian market. Samsung also launched a ‘Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 SoC’ powered ‘Galaxy S II’ which most people feel might be due to a deficiency of the ‘Exynos 4210’ SoCs. The ‘OMAP 4430’ chip offers a relatively similar performance as compared to the ‘Exynos 4210’ chip.

The point to be noted is that, Samsung has successfully been able to penetrate all the major world markets with the myriad variants of the ‘Galaxy S II’ smartphone while not compromising majorly on any of the original characteristics that had made the phone such a popular device. If we consider the BCG matrix, when the ‘Galaxy S II’ was released in April, it was a ‘STAR’ and it has now become a ‘CASH COW’ which Samsung is looking to milk. This also reaffirms the relevancy of a popular proverb: ‘Make hay while the sun shines’. J

As we approach the end of another eventful year, one of the Samsung representatives has said that the world will witness the successor to the ‘Galaxy S II’ which, as you might have already guessed by now, is the Galaxy S III’ (to be released at Mobile World Congress at Barcelona in 2012). Samsung has surely had a hell of a lot of fun with the ‘Galaxy S II’ this year. Hopefully it will deliver again with the ‘Galaxy S III'.

Stay Tuned..!!